saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’
Parallel Translations
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saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’
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saying: These laste have wrought but one houre and thou hast made them equall vnto vs which have born the burthe and heet of the daye.
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Saying, These last haue wrought but one houre, and thou hast made them equall vnto vs, which haue borne the burden and heate of the day.
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Matthew 20:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Romans 11:5-6 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
- 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often. Five times I received forty stripes minus one from the Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep. I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies.
- Luke 12:55 When a south wind blows, you say, ‘There will be a scorching heat,’ and it happens.
- Luke 14:10-11 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes, he may tell you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
- Luke 18:11-12 The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, extortionists, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’
- 1 Corinthians 4:11 Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.
- Isaiah 58:2-3 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways. As a nation that did righteousness, and didn’t forsake the ordinance of their God, they ask of me righteous judgments. They delight to draw near to God. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.
- Jonah 4:8 When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
- Zechariah 7:3-5 and to speak to the priests of the house of Yahweh of Armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?” Then the word of Yahweh of Armies came to me, saying, “Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?
- Malachi 1:13 You say also, ‘Behold, what a weariness it is!’ and you have sniffed at it”, says Yahweh of Armies; “and you have brought that which was taken by violence, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring the offering. Should I accept this at your hand?” says Yahweh.
- Malachi 3:14 You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God;’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions, and that we have walked mournfully before Yahweh of Armies?
- Luke 15:29-30 But he answered his father, ‘Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this your son came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’
- Romans 3:22-24 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;
- Romans 3:27 Where then is the boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.
- Romans 3:30 since indeed there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith, and the uncircumcised through faith.
- Romans 9:30-32 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness. Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone;
- Romans 10:1-3 Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
- Ephesians 3:6 that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus through the Good News,
- James 1:11 For the sun arises with the scorching wind and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So the rich man will also fade away in his pursuits.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (9 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour,…
12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
Ver. 12. Thou hast made them equal] Lo, this is the guise of graceless hypocrites, to be quarrelling and contending with God and man, as unworthily dealt withal. Thus those Jewish justiciaries, Isa 58:3, hit God in the teeth with their good services and small thanks. So the proud Pharisee sets forth, not his wants, but his worth. Contrariwise, Jacob cries out in a low language, Domine, non sum dignus, Gen 30:10. So doth Paul, 1Co 15:9; the centurion, Mat 8:6; the Baptist, Mat 3:11. St Augustine, Non sum dignus, quem tu diligas, Domine, Lord, I am not worthy of thy love.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But he answered one of them,.... Who was the…
But he answered one of them,.... Who was the forwardest and loudest in his complaints, and represented the rest;
and said, friend, I do thee no wrong; by giving all alike, the same privileges and blessings to the last, as to the first, since nothing was withheld from him. And indeed the Lord does no wrong to any, by the distinction which he makes among his creatures: he is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works: he does no injury to the evil angels, by choosing the good angels, and confirming them in the estate in which they were created; when the others are reserved in chains of darkness, to the judgment of the great day; or by choosing fallen men, in Christ, and making provisions of grace for them, and not devils: and so there is no unrighteousness in him, nor does he do any wrong to any, when, like the potter, out of the same clay, he makes one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour; any more than when, in a providential way, he gives riches and wealth to some, and withholds them from others; or sends his Gospel, the means of grace to one, and not to another: and still less can he be thought to do wrong to the sons of men, by giving to them alike the same grace and privileges here, and the same happiness and glory hereafter; since neither have any right to what they have, or shall enjoy, and no one has the less for what is given to the other.
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Didst thou not agree with me for a penny? That is, to labour in the vineyard all the day for a penny; yea, this agreement was made personally with him, not with a servant, or messenger of his; though if it had, it ought, according to the Jewish canons, to have been abode by, which run thus (b):
"A man says to his messenger, or servant, go and hire workmen for me for three pence; he goes and hires them for four pence: if the messenger says to them, your wages be upon me, he gives them four pence, and takes three pence of the master of the house; he looses one out of his own purse: if he says to them, your hire be upon the master of the house, the master of the house gives them according to the custom of the province: if there are one in the province that hired for three pence, and others that are hired for four pence, he gives them but three pence, "and the murmuring" is against the messenger; in what things? When the work is not known, but when the work is known, and it is worth four pence, the master of the house gives them four pence; but if his messenger does not say to them four pence, they do not labour and do what deserves four pence. The householder says to him, hire me for four pence, and the messenger goes and hires for three pence, though the work deserves four pence, they have but three pence; because that , "they took it upon themselves", (i.e. they agreed for so much,) and their murmuring is against the messenger.''
Thus the argument in the parable proceeds upon the agreement, which ought to be abode by.
(b) Maimon. Hilch, Shecirut, c. 9. sect. 3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Thou hast made them equal to us - So…
Thou hast made them equal to us - So St. Peter expressly, Acts xv, 9. God-hath put no difference between us (Jews) and them, (Gentiles, ) purifying their hearts by faith. And those who were equally holy here, whenever they were called, will be equally happy hereafter.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The burden and heat of the day - The…
The burden and heat of the day - The burden means the heavy labor, the severe toil. We have continued at that toil in the heat of the day. The others had worked only a little while, and that in the cool of the evening, and when it was fax more pleasant and much less fatiguing.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and…
Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat--the burning heat.
of the day--who have wrought not only longer but during a more trying period of the day.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 12. Borne the burden — The weight of the…
12. Borne the burden — The weight of the whole day’s labour instead of a single hour. Heat — In the original, the καυσων or scorcher; which was the burning east wind coming at midday from the Arabian desert. They had toiled through this hot blast, while the others had laboured only in the one cool hour.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 12. which have borne the burden and heat of…
12. which have borne the burden and heat of the day] This may be regarded as man’s estimate of his own merits, which is not the divine estimate. The words echo the tone of “what shall we have?” ch. Mat_19:27.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (12) But one hour.—Literally, in what was probably the…
(12) But one hour.—Literally, in what was probably the technical language of labourers, made but one hour:
The burden and heat of the day.—The word rendered “heat” is elsewhere used—as in Jas_1:11, and the LXX. of Jon_4:8—for the “burning wind” that often follows on the sunrise, and makes the labour of the first half of the day harder than that of the latter.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain These last have wrought but one hour; mian wran…
These last have wrought but one hour; mian wran epsihsan : una hora fecerunt (Vulgate); have spent but one hour (Revised Version). The verb poiein is used with nouns of time in the sense of "spend," "pass," as in Rth_2:19 (Septuagint); Act_15:33, etc. They speak of the late workers contemptuously (outoi oi escatoi), "these fellows who are last." They do not allow that they laboured they "made" one hour nominally. Equal unto us. Bengel notes, "Envy does not demand more for itself, but wishes that others should have less." Their complaint is that others who have worked less are not docked of their wages in due proportion. Burden and heat of the day; to barov thv hmerav kai toswna : the burden of the day and the scorching heat (Revised Version). The latter word is used for the hot dry wind which, blowing from the east, was fatal to vegetation and prejudicial to human comfort, if not to life. The remonstrance of these men may be compared with that of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. (Luk_15:29, Luk_15:30) They how somewhat of the spirit of the apostles when they asked, "What shall we have therefore?". (Mat_19:27)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.